Well, in case you hadn’t heard yet, Gmail is that absolute best free email service out there. Actually, its just the best period. Personally, I like it so much that I prefer its interface even to Outlook’s own familiar and effective one. I mean, conversations, chatting, little nifty pictures for your contacts? I can’t read my email enough! Now if only people would email me… Anyways, this list is for those of you who love Gmail, but haven’t quite learned how to start really using it to its full potential. This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything possible with Gmail; just something that anyone can use to get started.

1. Download the Gmail Notifier

   Well, if you don’t have Firefox already, you should be getting it right about now. Then you should install the Gmail notifier, made by Doron Rosenberg, that tells you when you receive a new email right in your browser’s status bar. If you insist on not using Firefox, then pick up this notifier that goes into windows’ own system tray.

2. Set up some labels

   You should think of labels as being a variation on tags. This is a great tool in Gmail that allows you to categorize things, and what’s really great, is that emails can have multiple labels. To set up a label, go to Settings and select the Label tab. Then, in the textbox that says, “Create a new label:” just type your label and click Create. That’s it. Now you can manually label each email or you can say “screw that!” and just move on to tip 3.

3. Filter messages from certain addresses

   Gmail has filter capabilities that will automatically do certain things with certain emails that you define, such as labeling. Click on Settings - Filters - Create a New Filter, and just go through the instructions. The options are pretty obvious, but never fear, there is help if you need it: Click on Help and then choose Filters under “Common Mail Tasks and Features.”

4. Use Aliases to filter to the extreme!

   Here is another great way to organize your emails. Say that you want to filter out certain emails for some reason, but you don’t want to go through making filters for a list of people; instead, create an alias so that you will have only one filter. All you do is add a plus sign (+) and then any additional characters to your address. So you could do john+business@gmail.com and give that to your colleagues and then use a filter rule for just one address. Nifty, eh?

5. Don’t just store email on Gmail

   Gmail is always shoving in your face how much space there is in your inbox; well, why don’t you put it to use? You can pick up a Firefox extension called Gmail Space, by Rahul Jonna, that converts your browser into something that resembles an FTP client. On top of that, every file that you transfer using this extensions get ‘GSPACE’ put in the subject, so you can go ahead and create some filters to keep this stuff out of your inbox. I would recommend using it as a back up for some of your very important documents, but keep your storage limit in mind.